


Beauty Killed the Beast

by thatscalledyes



Category: Falling in Reverse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-17 11:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatscalledyes/pseuds/thatscalledyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"I'm losing control. I can't deal with all the pressure and all the hate. I don't understand why they hate me so much. I'm a monster to them..." He said, feeling the cold seep into his veins. He never did think he would let them get the best of him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She helped pick him up off the ground. "Look at me." She commanded. He looked into her big blue orbs and saw a glimmer of hope. "You can do this. I believe in you. You need to show them what you got. You've gotten this far and they haven't stopped you yet. You can't let this be the end. You can't let them win."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She was so beautiful and all else seemed like it didn't matter. A sense of confidence swelled in his chest and he felt alive with just a single look from her. Beauty killed the beast.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Ronnie was never known as anything else but the bad kid at school. He was always getting in trouble with teachers and getting caught doing drugs in the bathroom. But his bad boy nature is what drew Gwen to him immediately. She liked the danger that came with him. She wasn't a bad girl herself, but she was no goody-two shoes either._

_One day after school, she approached him. He was standing outside with his back against the brick wall and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Gwen loved the leather, the cigarettes, the long black hair, and he was in a band. He was, for a teenage Gwen, flawless._

_"Hey, you're Ronnie, right?" She approached him with caution. She wasn't sure how he would react to her._

_He lifted the cigarette from between his lips and dropped his arm to the side, tapping out the ashes. "What's a pretty girl like you doing talking to a motherfucker like me? I'm not someone you want to get to know." He took a sweet drag from his cigarette._

_She took another step closer. "You interest me." She said. "I'm Gwen."_

_Ronnie wasn't the type to fall in love. He loved girls but he refused to let himself fall into a serious relationship. Already, he was beginning to think that she could be the one to change all of that for him. "What are you doing right now?" He dropped his cigarette on the ground and stomped it out. "I have an idea."_

_He took her by the hand and led him to his car. He drove her over to his house where they went upstairs and hid away in his room. No one was home, but the secretive nature of the endeavor gave the two a sense of rebellion._

_He sat her down at a round table. He walked around and sat directly across from her. The room was dark, with only a little sunlight peeking through the drawn curtains. From beneath his chair, he pulled out a gun and placed it on the table._

_Gwen's eyes jumped back and forth from the gun to Ronnie and back to the gun. He had a slight smirk on his face and Gwen began to think that she should have listened to him when he said not to get involved with him._

_"Russian roulette." He stated. "You go first."_

_"Ronnie, I-I can't do this." Gwen pushed the gun away from her with shaky hands._

_He picked it up and pointed it at her. "Sitting in this room playing Russian roulette, finger on the trigger to my dear Juliet."_


	2. You fell so hard that you're killing yourself

“Scarlet, are you ready to go pick up the boys from the airport?” Gwen called down the hall to her friend and roommate, Scarlet. The girls met in college and had been inseparable ever since.

It had been almost three years since the last time Gwen had seen Ronnie. She knew Ronnie had been bad news since the day she met him and he pointed a loaded gun right at her face. It had only been a matter of time before he got arrested and sent to prison for two years. Now, a year after his release, she was finally going to see him again. Scarlet had developed a relationship with his new band’s guitar player, Jacky Vincent and the two girls were going to pick up Jacky and Ronnie at the airport.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just Ronnie.” Scarlet tried to soothe Gwen’s racing nerves.

Gwen shook her head, taking deep breaths. “What if he’s not the same Ronnie I used to know? I mean, I know he’s going to be different. But what if prison changed him into a person that I’m not going to like?”

“Would you just relax?” Scarlet tried to lighten Gwen’s mood. She could feel the tension Gwen was having with her Ronnie problems and wished she could do something to help. Scarlet didn’t know much about Gwen’s past with Ronnie. All she knew was that they had gone to high school together and developed a relationship. She had no idea what else had happened between the two.

The airport was loud and busy as usual. They didn’t expect it to be anything but. They passed by families with crying kids, business men and women yapping on their cellphones, dragging suitcases behind them, and the occasional married couple who just wanted to get away from everyone so they could be alone.

The girls stood at the glass wall and watched the planes land. Each plane that landed could have been carrying Ronnie inside of it. After two different planes, Ronnie and Jacky’s finally landed. When Gwen saw Ronnie emerge from the tunnel, she was brought back in time to the moment he confided in her for the very first time.

_“How come no one is ever home?” Gwen asked, playing with the tassels on her bag._

_Ronnie became suspiciously quiet. He just looked down at his feet and ran a hand through his dark hair. “She’s the reason I do all this bad stuff, you know. She’s why I do drugs and stupid shit. She left us.”  
“Your mother?” Gwen took a guess._

_“And my dad,” Ronnie continued. “He never has the time for us. My brother is a drug addict, my mother isn’t ever around and my father is doing all that he can to try and support us on his own. She took a piece of me the day she went away.”_

_“I’m so sorry, Ronnie.” Gwen reached out her hand and placed it on his knee._

_Ronnie looked at Gwen’s hand and then let his eyes travel up her arm. “Where did those bruises come from?”_

_Gwen pulled her arm away quickly. “Nowhere. I-I fell. That’s all.”_

_Ronnie knew that she was lying but he could tell she didn’t want to get into it. She just wanted to drop the subject. Clearly, it wasn’t important enough to her. He was more important to her than anything else going on in her own life._

_He stood up sharply and walked over to the window, pulling the curtains open. He looked back at her, the sunlight pouring in and brightening his shadowed face. “You fell so hard that you’re killing yourself.”_


	3. This place lies within the depths of my dreams

_“I had this crazy dream the other night.” Ronnie sat down at the lunch table next to Gwen._

_She smiled at his eagerness to tell her the story. “Go ahead, tell me.” She liked the person Ronnie became when she got to know him for who he really was. His exterior was so dark and rebellious. Inside, he wasn’t as dark as she had thought. He had just been through too many rough patches in his life._

_“There’s a place that I found. I was in a garden, surrounded by fire. Through the smoke, I saw a man with an axe, standing in the rain. He looked me straight in my eye and said ‘Never fall asleep, you won’t wake up.’” Ronnie said._

_“A man with an axe, huh? So, like, the grim reaper or something?” Gwen attempted to decipher his dream. She was fascinated by dreams and loved trying to figure out what they could mean._

_“Yeah, I guess that could be who it was. He said ‘Destroy the guillotine before he does.’ But the thing is, I don’t know who the other guy was that he was talking about. I walked with the shadows out of this garden on my search for the guillotine but I never found it. I woke up before anything else really happened.” Ronnie seemed just as interested in his own dream as Gwen was. “The part that got me was ‘you won’t wake up.’ I didn’t know what to think of that, you know? As much as my life sucks, I don’t want to die, either.”_

_Gwen could see that Ronnie had hope for himself. Aside from his problems, he really did try to hold his head up high. “Yeah,” She nodded. “I know what you mean.”_

He looked the same as he did all those years ago. Aside from having much more muscle, he looked like the same old Ronnie on the outside. She just hoped he was similar to the same old Ronnie on the inside. She watched him hug Scarlet quickly, then step back to allow Jacky and her to be reunited. He smiled widely at their ardent embrace and passionate kiss. Then he saw her, and his smile faded away from his face. He kept his lips parted slightly as he tried to pin point who she was.  
His smile returned, but not as wide. It was more of a half crooked smile. “Gwen?”

Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of her name. “Yeah, it’s me.” She nodded.

He reached his arms out and pulled her into his muscled embrace. He was so much stronger than he used to be. “You look different.” He commented as he pulled out of the hug.

She wanted to hold onto him longer. It had been so long since she felt him next to her. “You do too.” She laughed slightly. “Nice muscles.” She commented, poking his massive bicep.

“You’re all tatted up now.” He let his arm graze her tattooed shoulder.

Goosebumps rose on her skin at his touch. She had missed his fingertips stroke her skin the way only he knew how she liked it. She loved the way that he teased; He loved the way that she breathed.


	4. You're the only one that wore your seat belt

_Gwen had known Ronnie for a few months now. She knew what he was like and how he could be sometimes. He was the type of guy who would show up at your house at one o'clock in the morning just because he wanted to. And that's exactly what he did._

_Even though she had school in about 6 hours, Gwen was still awake. She had an awful case of insomnia. She couldn't ever fall asleep so she usually spent her nights laying awake in bed or reading a book. It helped pass the time. She was in the middle of a sentence when she heard a slight tapping on her window. Even though her room was on the first floor, the window was pretty high off the ground._

_She pushed the blankets on her bed aside and walked cautiously over to the window. Her biggest fear was that something or someone would pop up out of nowhere and scare her half to death. But when she looked through the window panes, she saw Ronnie standing there holding a flashlight over his head and a pebble in his other hand. He dropped the pebble and used his hand to motion to her to open the window._

_She sighed and unlocked the window, sliding it open. "Ronnie, it's almost one-thirty in the morning. What are you doing outside my window?"_

_"Come on. We're going on an adventure." He waved her outside._

_She hesitated. She knew Ronnie. This could very well end badly. "Fuck it." She decided. "Let me grab my bag and I'll meet you in the front."_

_She knew that it probably wasn't the best idea. Decision making at early hours of the morning was always unhealthy. But decision making at early hours of the morning was meant for teenagers like Gwen and Ronnie. They just simply didn't give a fuck._

_She grabbed her bag, slipped on her flip flops, grabbed her black cardigan off her bean bag chair in the corner and snuck out of the house to meet Ronnie at the front. He greeted her with a hug but she pulled away quickly._

_"Ronnie, you smell like alcohol and weed. Are you sure driving is the best idea? Maybe I should drive." Gwen suggested._

_"Don't be silly, Gwen." Ronnie tapped the side of her arm. "You don't even have your driver's license yet. You can't drive. Besides, it'll be fine." He pulled her closer to him and left a kiss on her cheek._

_He had her so distracted that she just willingly got in the car with him. He was hypnotizing. She would do anything to spend more time with him. She thought maybe she loved him._

_She got into the back seat with Ronnie and there were already three other people inside. She recognized the other girl, Whisper, in the passenger's side up front next to her boyfriend, Mark. Next to Ronnie on the other side was someone she didn't recognize. Apparently his name was Max and he was in Ronnie's band. The entire car reeked of drugs and alcohol._

_Mark backed out of Gwen's driveway slowly and she got slightly reassured that maybe he wasn't as smashed as everyone else. But then he put the car into drive and floored the gas pedal, speeding off down the empty street. Her heart fell into her stomach._

_The music was loud, all the windows were open and they were flying down the street at close to ninety miles per hour._

_"Hey, Mark? Could you maybe slow down a little bit?" Gwen tried shouting over the music and the wind. It was no use. He couldn't hear her. She shook her head and looked out the window, watching the scenery go by much too fast._

_"Hey, Gwen." Ronnie nudged her arm and handed her a bottle._

_"No, thanks." She shook her head and handed him the bottle back._

_He was so wasted he couldn't care less about her rejecting his offer. She knew normally he would have tried to pressure her into having some. At this point in Ronnie's mind set, all he cared about was having more himself._

_They passed the alcohol around and even Mark was drinking while he was driving, as if he hadn't already had enough. Gwen looked around and noticed that she was the only one wearing her seat belt. Suddenly, she heard an angry car horn and looked up to see a bright set of headlights coming straight towards them. The next thing she knew, there was shattered glass, and her body was violently thrown about in the seat, the seat belt restraining her from going anywhere. Unfortunately, it wasn't the same for everyone else._


	5. Yes it is true, I finally fell in love

Out of curiosity, Gwen looked Ronnie up on the internet. She never knew what had happened before or after he got into that police car that night. She just remembered showing up at the scene and watching the two cops grab his arms and thrust them behind his back, snapping the handcuffs around his wrists, and shoving him into the back of a screeching cop car.

Because he was so famous, she figured his story must be everywhere. But it wasn't. There were a few articles about his new album and that was about it. As she scrolled through endless pages of different websites, she came across a forums page discussing Ronnie and his actions. It seemed rather dated.

**User 78912: I don't know the definite story but I heard Ronnie definitely shot that kid.**

**User 67281: He didn't shoot anyone, you idiot. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ronnie is completely innocent. I don't think he deserves to go to jail.**

**User 23567: Ronnie Radke is a complete asshole. Of course he deserves to go to jail. He is dealing with illegal substances and breaking the law. I believe he has every right to go to jail. Maybe it'll do him some good. Then again, once an asshole, always an asshole. His music isn't even that good.**

**User 67281: If you were in his position, you wouldn't be saying that. Everything that he's being charged for are things he didn't do. Yeah, maybe he has been dealing with drugs but that isn't what he was charged for. If anyone is an asshole, it's you.**

The conversation continued on as User 67281 and User 23567 argued over who was right and who was wrong about Ronnie. It seemed no one really knew the truth about him.

"Are you nervous at all?" Gwen stood with Ronnie backstage before the show. He tried not to show his uneasiness, but his big, brown eyes gave it away.

He shrugged it off. "I guess a little. I mean, it's one of my first shows since being released. I'm afraid how the fans will react."

Gwen rubbed his muscular arm up and down. "True fans will never leave you." And neither did she.

Gwen had never really seen Ronnie perform before. The only time she ever really saw him perform was at her seventeenth birthday party. He had insisted she let him and his band play.

_They placed the cake down in front of her. All of her friends and family surrounded her at the small table with the plastic red and white checkered table cloth on it. Her family owned a small cafe down the street from their house. Her parents thought it would be the perfect spot to host her party._

_'Happy Birthday, Gwen' It read on the cake in purple frosting. Purple was her favorite color. Confetti fell from the ceiling and everyone cheered as she blew out her candles. When she glanced up from the cake, she saw Ronnie gazing at her from the front of the room. He stood there with his eyeliner rimmed eyes, and mic stand in his hands. She smiled a little, but he just stood there, taking in her beauty._

_She stood from the table and walked over to him. She didn't know what to expect from him. He was always so mysterious, especially around other people. It was almost as if he tried too hard to put on the bad boy facade when really she knew he could be such a sweetheart underneath it all._

_No one really noticed her disappearance from the table. They were all too invested in the sugary confection sitting in front of them._

_He put his hand on her shoulder, and she caressed his cheek. She glanced from his lips to his eyes, then back to his lips. His hand slipped off her shoulder and traveled down her arm to her wrist. She moved her hands to his chest and pushed him back against the wall behind them. The pictures on the wall trembled slightly. The one of her and her parents fell to the floor, the glass shattering. Again, no one really seemed to care. She looked at the shattered glass briefly before looking back into Ronnie's brown eyes. She rose onto her toes and kissed him. It started out gentle, and then became rough with every gasp of breath._

_"Not here. Not now." He mumbled into her sweet lips._

_She backed off and frowned. "After everyone leaves. I'll tell my parents I'll close up for the night."_

_Ronnie couldn't resist. Her black hair was so smooth, her pink lips tasted so sweet against his own and her touch left him feeling alive. He could see it in her eyes. She was begging for more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting a new chapter after this one and then this one will be all caught up. I have no more written yet after these next two chapters. I wish this website had a way for me to let you guys know the status of stories. I promise I'm going to finish all the stories I have going right now but college does take up a lot of my time.


	6. I'm insane, I can feel it in my bones

"Where the fuck is Ronnie?" Derek's frustration was evident in his tone of voice.

Gwen sighed. "Everyone's looking. We'll find him, don't worry."

This was the biggest show they had to date. Ronnie's disappearance was putting everyone on edge. It was too late to cancel and send the fans home.

Ronnie's hotel room was the last place he could be. Jacky had tried earlier, but it was locked, and no one had the key.

"Ronnie?" Gwen knocked on the door but found the door was open. She pushed it open more and crossed over threshold into the hallway. As she reached the end of the hallway, she saw Ronnie sitting at the end of the bed with his head in his hands. His fingers were tangled in his raven black hair and his hands were balled up into fists by his temples. "Ronnie?" She asked again, catching his attention.

His head jerked upwards and he took her in standing there. "Sorry... I just..." He had no explanation. His mind was turning with too many thoughts.

Gwen took a few more steps forward. "You know, there's a huge crowd out there waiting for you to play a show for them. You can't just sit here and let them down like that."

Ronnie shook his head, still looking down at the carpeted floor. "But they let me down."

She could see the pain in his eyes. His time away from music caused his fans to desert him. They thought of him as a changed person, and no longer wanted anything to do with him.

Suddenly, he looked up at her. "I have been having these dreams," He continued. "About you and me, and all of the things that happened to us before I went to prison."

Gwen was unsure of how to respond. She continued to stand there, watching him fight the demons that resided inside his mind.

He stood, fighting back. "I'm ready." He looked straight into her eyes, and in that moment, she could no longer see the pain. She saw passion, drive, and she knew that these dreams from the past were fueling his fight. He fought his way to the top. Now he had to fight to stay there.

He walked past her and out the door, and Gwen quickly followed behind. Ronnie wasn't acting like himself, and that worried her. There was something wrong with him, but she couldn't quite place her finger on what it was. Was it the fans? Or something else inside his mind that was driving him towards insanity?

**Author's Note:**

> I switch between present and past. Past is always in italics.


End file.
